I’m into the power and nuance of stories and storytelling and lately have been focused on digital storytelling (DST). I have some of this content in my Soul Stories project section on this website, but I also wanted to expand upon it here.
DST refers to short video segments (typically 3-5 minutes in length) personal narratives that incorporate digital images, music, and voice-over narration by the person making the video. They are typically created within a workshop-based process that includes a Story Circle to share, critique, and refine stories-in-progress. Developed in the early 1990s by media/theater artists Dana Atchley and Joe Lambert and promoted through their Center for Digital Storytelling (CDS), DST has been used for public health research, training, and policy campaigns (such as the Silence Speaks campaign); community building (such as the BBC Capture Wales program); literacy programs; and reflective practice with health science students. DST is increasingly used as an innovative community-based participatory method that is especially effective at informing program planners and policy makers about the lived experiences of marginalized people.
Here is an example of a DST video “My Story of Community Health Nursing” that I made recently using the user-friendly storyboard style video editing software program WeVideo. My aims in doing this short video were: 1) to try out the WeVideo software (they have a free version, but they include an advertisement at the end of those videos), and 2) to tell the story of where community health nursing has taken me over the past thirty years. I purposefully kept it fairly low-tech and no-frills, didn’t try to add layered music or sound effects or fade ins, and I made this DST video without the use of a group Story Circle setting. I made it using my MacBook Air and its built-in microphone. It took me about two full days to produce the video, but that included the storyboard work as well as learning to use the WeVideo editing tools (which are really quite easy and they include helpful instructional videos). This would be a great resource in teaching (they have an educational platform that includes the requisite student privacy/protections).
I plan to do a second version of this soon within an ‘official’ DST Story Circle setting with more professional sound equipment to try out that experience. One of the critiques of the ‘official’ DST workshop model is that the workshop facilitators typically impose the use of a traditional, linear, redemptive storytelling narrative; this can exclude people and stories which do not fit this model. Researchers and DST practitioners such as Worchester call for use of a more flexible, co-created space for DST, including how narrative parameters are established in the workshop (Worchester, Lara. “Reframing Digital Storytelling as Co-Creative.” IDS Bulletin 43.5 (2012): n. pag.).